The Doctor
by Dr-Lovekill
Summary: Blood...Pain...Death. The plague is ravaging the land, killing all in its wake. In a small house, it is destroying a life...no, it is taking much more than simply a life, it is taking hope. Enter 'The Doctor', the tragic 'star' of our little play. What cure is there to the death when death is the only cure? Ashes to ashes...we ALL fall down. Grimdark. Rated for a reason.


_**I took a short break from my other stories to write this. It...came to me amid the turmoil and darkness my own circumstances have thrust upon me of late, and though I didn't want to pen this at first, I have felt compelled to do so. Maybe to get it out...to release my own torment thinly veiled inside a fanfiction of my favorite show. Maybe it's a plea for understanding...or maybe I just felt like destroying something beautiful. In many ways, I am the doctor in this story...or have become as such. To understand the fecklessness of your duty in the face of certain inevitability is something dark and torturous that weighs upon the soul. To watch the spread of a plague you cannot cure, and the slow rot of all things you love...that is true terror. Terror you must court. Terror you must befriend, terror that you live and breathe every waking moment, and even when you lie down to sleep...that terror becomes you dreams.**_

 _ **Anyway...here is my own little grimdark masterpiece. Here is "The Doctor" Feel it all. -Drake**_

She lay upon the sheets of the bed helplessly, her body wracked by the pain and weakness of her condition. Her once strong and agile body now all but useless under the torturous disease that had ravaged her. The room was dim, lit only by the glow of a single candle. The light hurt the mare's eyes, and the only other pony in the room, an orange filly, knew that even if she wanted more light to fight off the gloom that saturated the house, it was forbidden. The disease was running rampant, and all supplies were rationed and limited. Little light. Little food. Little hope. The little girl pony grabbed the left hoof of the mare and dropped her head onto the dirty sheet. When she finally raised her head, two small wet circles, her own tear-marks remained on the fabric.

"Please get better..." The foal whispered sadly. "Please? You're so strong...you can fight this, right?" There was nothing from the mare but the sound of labored breathing. The foal whimpered. "Applebloom...she...she couldn't...fight it..." She sobbed, letting the pain of all of her loss claim her. "Rarity couldn't fight it either. It's so bad, Rainbow Dash..." She tried to control herself, to breathe, to calm down. "Please..." As if answering her lament, there was the sound of three sharp knocks on the wooden door. The foal slid out of her chair and slowly made her way across the small room. She unbolted the door and cautiously drew it open as if death itself may be outside. The figure standing on the doorstep caused her to gasp and fall backwards.

He or she was a pony dressed all in black, a long black coat of some waxed material covering his lower half and his hind legs, secured around the waist by a black rope, from which was hung several bags. His forehooves were covered by black gloves, and in his right forehoof, he held a long black cane, topped by a winged hourglass. His face was not that of a normal pony, and this is what had terrified the foal. She soon realized that the unnatural face she looked upon was actually a mask, a white leather mask formed into the shape of a bird, with a long beak and two eyes, covered by round lenses of dark-tinted glass. On his head was a black, wide-brimmed hat. The two lifeless eyes of the mask stared at her for a moment, then the figure stepped into the house, closing the door slowly with his stick.

"I am...the doctor." The figure said in a low voice, muffled and somewhat distorted by the mask he wore, making him seem less pony-like to the scared child. Without a further word, the wraith-like figure moved to the bed. With his stick, he gently moved the rainbow-maned mare's head to the side, examining the red marks on her neck and face.

"Yes. Plague." The muffled voice stated coldly from behind the hideous mask. No emotion...no compassion.

"Make her better..." The tear-choked voice of the orange foal came. The black-shrouded pony did not move, did not betray any sense of the dread and hopelessness that was breaking the heart of the young foal nearby. Finally the dingy, stained white bird-like mask moved an almost imperceptive bit.

"It is plague...young one." The menacing figure said in a low, halting voice. "She is...dead."

"NO!" The purple-maned foal cried. The little pony grabbed the pony in black in a pleading hug. "She's not dead...not DEAD!" Tears poured from the foal's purple eyes, causing them to glisten like amethyst in the flickering candlelight. "She's right THERE! She's breathing! Can't you make her better?! There has to be medicine...or...or a spell or..." She was cut off by the cane of the macabre doctor, pressing her away, just enough force to get his point across. The young pony understood now, and sank to the floor. "Please...she's all I have..." The pony in the mask pulled the blood-spattered sheet from the barely-conscious form on the bed. The tell-tale red pustules stood out dramatically against the light blue fur of the sick mare.

"My parents are...are dead and...and she's all I have." The youngster still pleaded as the doctor went about his work. "Please...I don't wanna be...alone." The bird mask cocked slightly toward the foal for a moment, then back to the pony in the bed. Two magenta eyes, the whites streaked with red, slowly and tiredly opened half-way, not acknowledging the horror in front of her, save for a weak and knowing nod.

"It is time." The doctor said softly and in a measured tone, as if the three words had been rehearsed, or more than likely stated countless hundreds of times. The pegasus in the bed nodded again, and opened her mouth to speak. Only a barely audible squeak emerged from her cracked and blood-stained lips. The doctor looked slowly to the foal, not speaking a word, then walked across the dim room, where he rapped thrice upon the wooden door with the tip of his cane. In moments they came, four more ponies, all stallions, all dressed in black shrouds and thick gloves, their faces covered by black silk. Before the foal could react or protest, they had taken the cyan pegasus from the house onto the street. She was placed in a cart, already stacked with half a dozen dead and dying ponies. The little filly, finally shaken from her shock, tried to make a mad dash for the door, to perhaps try to save her friend, or maybe just to say goodbye. The cane of the doctor stopped her at the threshold.

"Why?" A gasping, panting sob came from the child.

"To prevent...the spread." The doctor answered, the smoky lenses of the beaked mask locked onto the cart outside. "The spread of...the death."

"Wh...where is Rainbow Dash going?" The little foal squeaked. Again, the mask moved a few scant millimeters.

"She will...be cleansed. By fire. It will...stop the spread. Perhaps." The last word was spoken in a soft whisper, a ghost-like sound hissing from the doctor's terrifying mask. He heard a thump and slowly looked down to see the foal laying on the floor, shaking...sobbing. The mask cocked to one side curiously, as if the pony behind it was beginning to understand emotion for the first time. Then the cough came, and the doctor snapped completely around to face the child. The cane in his right hoof gently tapped the side of her head, forcing her to look to the right. She felt the tip of the stick press gently onto her throat, and felt the pain in her tonsils, making her whimper. Next, the cane pressed into the pit of her right foreleg.

"Pain?" The doctor asked simply. She nodded. "You have felt...cold." Again she nodded. The doctor looked down for a brief moment, the beak of his mask nearly pointing at the floor, like a vulture in mourning. Perhaps that is what he was in this moment. He slowly reached into a satchel and withdrew a small bundle of pink and white flowers. "Come...little one." He whispered. The foal slid cautiously toward the ominous figure. Once she was within reach, he knelt down, and carefully arranged the few flowers in her purple mane. "Name."

"Scoo...Scootaloo." She stammered. He pulled a small notepad from a pocket, a small charcoal pencil, and wrote.

"Her name." He said unemotionally.

"Rainb...bow D...Dash..."

"Relative?"

"I...I wanted her...to be..." Came the response. The pony in the mask was as immobile as a statue for a few moments, then put away the notepad and pencil. "I'm scared." The foal whimpered. The doctor slowly clutched his stick and stood. He pointed toward the bed. When Scootaloo didn't move, he tapped her impatiently three times and pointed to the bed again. She stood, trembling, fearful, and walked slowly to the bed where only minutes before her only friend, her hero, her everything had been. She reluctantly climbed onto the mattress. The bed still felt warm, and there was a little comfort in that. It was _her_ warmth, and Scootaloo tried to soak it all up. She felt the sheet being pulled up to her chin, and looked to see the doctor standing by the bed.

"Will I...am I gonna die too?" The young filly asked. The mask drew closer, and Scootaloo could barely discern the sound of breathing.

"Yes." The reply was given.

"I'm scared..."

"Do you...wish for me to...teach you a song? You may sing it...when you are most scared. It may help you."

"O...okay..." Scootaloo trembled.

"Remember this..." The doctor said softly, still not betraying much feeling. Then he sang in a whisper:

" _Ring around the rosies_

 _pocket full of posies_

 _ashes to ashes_

 _we all fall down."_

"Sing that when you are...scared...little one."

"I...I will..." Scootaloo nodded sadly.

"And do not worry. I will come back to visit you again...very soon." The doctor walked from the house, the last on his schedule for the night, and strode down the street. What few ponies outside on the sidewalks gave the doctor a wide berth, terrified of his presence, knowing that to see the white mask of the doctor meant that death was near.

He walked well past the edge of Ponyville, to a small bridge over a clean creek. There, he disappeared quickly underneath the bridge, and sat down by the cool water. Slowly and deliberately, the gloves were pulled off. He moved a flat stone and retrieved the large metal box from the hole he had dug some weeks earlier...when the pestilence had first struck the town. He opened the box, and from the notepad, tore out three pages of names. Hesitating for a brief instant, he placed the names atop a pile of dozens of pages, closed the box, and replaced it in the hole, pulling the stone atop it once again. Then with a single measured movement born from habit and practice, he pulled free the white mask to reveal a purple unicorn mare, her blue and magenta mane plastered to her forehead with sweat, her face streaked with tears. She morosely looked down at her own reflection in the water.

"No cure..." She muttered, any sign of hope and life itself missing from her voice. Hollow...detached...her life and soul seemingly burned long ago with the bleeding and diseased bodies of ponies she once loved. "Why is there...no cure...why can't I find...a cure." She cocked her head slowly, her eyes locked on those of her reflection. A cough.

The night was silent now. The disease quietly ravaged the small city as the deathlike still of darkness signaled the end of another hellish day to many, and extinguished any lingering hope of a new day to some. A light breeze picked up, rustling the trees like the gentle rippling of a funeral pall under the ethereal touch of death's hoof. And from underneath the small bridge came a haunting song that had been sung from that desolate place many a night now:

" _Ring around the rosies_

 _Pocket full of posies_

 _Ashes...to ashes_

 _We all...fall...down..."_


End file.
